‘I doubt it,’ said Todd.
‘Bah,’ said Peter, clapping his telescope to and darting down the hill.
‘Please, sir, may I come too?’ he asked, purple in the face with speed, as Mr Saunders stepped into his cutter—the signal for the sloop’s captain was flying from the Centurion’s distant mizzen.
‘Make haste, then,’ said the captain, and Peter skipped into the boat as they shoved off on the wave.
The cutter pulled at racing speed, for the men were as eager to see the prize as Captain Saunders and Peter, and to hear the news: but it seemed a tedious age before the ship and the boat came together.
The grinning berth greeted Peter with a flood of wonderful details.
‘Pizarro’s squadron turned back at the Horn,’ said Preston. ‘Lost two ships.’
‘And the rest battered beyond belief—all condemned, ha, ha,’ said Bailey.
‘And the Spaniards were on the island until a day or two before we came in. Only a country force, armed merchantmen, but they would have chewed us up: and there we were cursing like mad because we couldn’t find it earlier.’
‘We had such a chase.’
‘Lost her and found her again—Mr Saumarez leaping about the main-royal truck all night.’
‘Crowded on everything, including my wipe.’
‘Ran her down in the evening.’
‘Fired four shots.’
‘And she let fly her sheets and halliards in alarm.’
‘She did, really. Never seen such a sight—washing day nothing to it—royals, stuns’ls and all.’
‘Loaded with silver.’
‘And sugar and things—cloth.’
‘Twenty-three cases of dollars, two hundredweight apiece.’
‘And masses of plate.’
‘And fifty-three hands—Lord, what a help they’ll be.’
‘The Carmel ho
The Carmel hee
Was crammed with silver.
Tweedle dee,’
sang Keppel, coming below. ‘Mr Palafox, sir,’ he said with an elegant bow, ‘allow me the pleasure of congratulating you on being far better off than you were last week.’
‘What, do I get some?’ asked Peter, looking pleased.
‘Oh, yes. You get some, although you were only lounging about under the palm-trees while we ran horrible dangers afloat: there were four real six-pounders shot off, bang, bang, bang, and Bailey had a fit.’
‘Where’s Ransome?’
‘In the prize. So is your man, watching the Dons like a hawk. Let’s go and wave.’
The prize, Nuestra Señora del Monte Carmelo, was sailing under the Centurion’s lee—a handsome, high-built Spanish ship with a noble poop, upon which stood Mr Saumarez, and Ransome near him. Ransome saw them, but did not venture to signal overtly: instead he waited until the first lieutenant had walked to the weather-rail and then he slapped his pocket, nudged the air with his elbow, raised an imaginary bottle, curved his arm as one who would dance—indicating thereby that they were all on fiddler’s green now, and that it was very delightful. But the humour of his gestures overcame him, and they heard a hoarse, stifled bellow float over the water, saw Mr Saumarez turn sharply and Ransome’s head bend attentively to the signal-book, while hard words passed on the Carmelo’s poop: these appeared to wound Ransome to the heart, for when the first lieutenant had resumed his station, Ransome was seen to apply an immense spotted handkerchief to his eyes, and from time to time he was obliged to wring it dry.
Sean was at the break of the fo’c’sle, armed, and glaring now down the forehatch, now into the waist of the prize, where a few disconsolate Spanish passengers stood sadly about: he was obsessed with the idea that someone, somewhere, was hiding some yet undiscovered silver, and the impossibility of seeing all the captives at once was wearing him to a hag-ridden shadow. He saw Peter out of the corner of his eye, touched his forelock, and without ever removing his piercing gaze from a tiny yellow Spanish merchant, suspected of having moidores in the heels of his shoes, Sean laid his forefinger to the side of his nose in a very significant and portentous way.
As the Centurion glided into her anchorage and the cable tightened behind her, rising in a straight line from the sea and squirting water as it took up the strain, the Tryal stood out of the bay.
‘She’s for Valparaiso,’ said Keppel. ‘There were some other merchantmen bound there with this Carmelo. There was an embargo, an embargee, on all shipping until a little while ago: but then they decided that we had all sunk, ha, ha, and took it off. Little did they know that I was aboard, with my advice at the Commodore’s disposal at any time of the night or day.’
The next few days witnessed scenes of unparalleled activity on Juan Fernandez as the squadron made ready for the sea: officers could be heard begging their men not to overdo it, not to strain themselves past repair—a weird sound indeed—as the water-casks, the dried cod, the innumerable stores, flew into the Centurion’s eager hold and the Anna’s guns darted aboard the Carmelo. A party came to Peter in the falling dusk and with tears in their eyes implored him to intercede with the first lieutenant, that they might go on by lantern-light. Sean sat on the chests of silver, great black rings round his eyes for want of sleep, foaming with rage when anyone approached. The bo’sun and a numerous party of volunteers were detected at midnight creeping about the upper rigging, improving work already passed by the rigorous first lieutenant. Hairy Amos caught his beard in a tackle, but would not have the heaving stopped on any account, preferring to lose enough to stuff a large pillow rather than delay the departure by a minute.
‘Ah, dear Lord,’ exclaimed Peter with a sigh, as the Centurion gathered way, ‘how glad I am to have a deck under my feet. I was all at sea when you marooned me on the island.’
‘No, you worn’t,’ said Ransome, frowning. ‘You was ashore.’
‘That was Teague’s joke,’ explained Keppel. ‘They always make jokes like that.’
‘Wheere’s the joke?’ asked Ransome.
‘He said he was at sea when he was on land. They call it a bull: but for my part I am willing to believe that it was unconscious in this case.’
‘He said he was at sea when he was on land. Oh well, hor hor,’ said Ransome heavily. ‘But it worn’t very funny. Not as good as mine about the Tryal.’ The disease had eaten into him, and he betrayed the uneasy jealousy of the established wit for an upstart rival: but his native good humour rallied at last and he said, ‘It was quite funny, though. At sea (meaning all astray, like) when on land. Hor, hor.’
‘It was a lovely island, indeed it was,’ said Peter, gazing affectionately at the beach where the Gloucesters, unable to be ready as soon as the Centurion and the newly-armed prize, milled frantically, like ants in the distance. ‘And I am very glad to have a piece of it to carry to Ireland.’ He referred to an enormous mass of rock, chipped into the semblance of a map of Juan Fernandez, that encumbered the berth, together with a mouldering turtle (thought to be asleep and destined for William), a net full of shells and a palm-leaf of moderately vigorous growth. ‘It was a lovely island,’ he went on, ‘but I am prodigious happy to leave it. Even this disgusting berth is agreeable, even its brutish inhabitants: the rude merriment of my untutored shipmates is delightful, and the artless howling of the first lieutenant is music in my ears.’
At this moment Peter felt a pair of very cold grey eyes boring into the nape of his neck. Ransome gave him a shattering nudge by way of a hint, and Keppel burst into a paroxysm of coughing.
‘Young gentlemen,’ said Mr Dennis. ‘We are at sea.’
‘Yes, sir,’ they said.
‘We are at sea,’ repeated the lieutenant, gazing about with profound satisfaction. ‘Not taking our ease like young ladies in an al fresco party.’
‘Oh no, sir,’ they said.
‘And at sea,’ said the lieutenant, with a sudden burst of ferocity, ‘there is work to be done. There is discipline too. You may have heard of it somewhere. And mast-heads exis
t, Mr Palafox.’
Peter looked up, and unable to suppress his delight, said, ‘An’t it charming to see them, sir? I had almost forgot what a top-gallant looked like, all round the Horn.’
‘Then you may gratify yourself with a closer inspection,’ said Mr Dennis. ‘Oblige me by running up there, as quick as you like.’
‘Aye-aye, sir,’ said Peter aloud. And in a much softer voice he added, ‘All right, Old Jersey Shirt (for Mr Dennis, like Mr Saumarez, came from the Channel Islands, and was to be seen, in cold weather, in the uncouth woollen garment of the natives of Jersey), I was going there anyway. So put that in your pipe and smoke it; and don’t I wish you may like it, ha, ha.’
A lovely island, thought Peter: and all the ship’s company said the same. But when it remained clearly, obstinately, in sight all day, and the next and the next, there were not a few to be found who were so darkly ungrateful that they shook their fists at it while they whistled with all the force of their lungs for a wind to carry them away.
The drum-roll and the crash of the bulkheads going down as a ship clears for action is perhaps the most exciting sound in the world. The drum thundered in the Centurion, the officers’ cabins vanished, casks lashed between the guns splashed overboard leaving white rings that ran to mingle with the wake as the Centurion tore through the sea towards a ship that was approaching on the opposite tack.
‘A seventy-four,’ said Preston, ducking under the vast spread of the starboard lower studdingsail.
‘Can’t see a thing,’ said Bailey, hopping.
Up in his station by the larboard fo’c’sle guns Peter said, ‘I can’t make her out.’
‘She’s a stout ship,’ said the gunner, standing near him. ‘Five minutes now.’
‘She must be a man-of-war, the way she comes down,’ whispered Preston. ‘She means business.’
‘Unless she’s a merchant who takes us for another.’
‘Don’t be an ass. Of course she’s a man-of-war—a two-decker. A sixty-gun ship or a seventy-four.’
‘Can’t see a thing, head-on like this.’
‘Four minutes. Three, and she is in range,’ murmured the gunner to himself, narrowing his eyes against the glare.
For the long moments before the ships converged the Centurion was filled with a solemn hush, broken only by the song of the wind and the sea ripping by. At the guns of the upper-deck the crews crouched ready: from the gun-deck wafted the smell of the slow-match, poised glowing in the linstocks. In a second the broadside could shatter the silence: Keppel and Ransome stood with their whistles, watching Mr Brett for the signal.
‘Mr Blew,’ came the Commodore’s voice, ‘I beg you will hail her in Spanish.’
The master came racing forward to the starboard cathead. ‘Qué nave?’ he hailed. ‘Que entregue en seguida—somos Ingleses.’
‘Tryal’s prize,’ came the answer, and as the ships swept past Peter saw Mr Hughes, first of the Tryal, standing on the fo’c’sle and peering somewhat nervously into the Centurion’s gun-ports one after the other: and as they came abreast he saw the red and gold of Spain flying below the English colours. But not a gun went off, and the Centurion came up into the wind, while the big Spaniard ran under her stern to lie-to in her lee.
‘Well, there’s still the other,’ said Peter hopefully, looking away to the smaller vessel on the horizon.
‘Pah,’ said the gunner disgustedly. ‘That’s only the Tryal with half her masts blown off. Maniacs.’ He stumped off, and a universal discontent filled the Centurion.
‘They must have cracked on like a lot of bay-boons,’ said Mr Blew angrily, ‘for to carry away like that just after refitting.’
‘What nasty lines she has,’ said Peter, sneering at the Spanish ship. ‘Just like Spillane’s wagon overturned in the bog.’
‘Have you seen her name?’ asked Bailey. ‘Arranzazu. What despicable nonsense.’
Presently the rumour spread that the prize had carried only five thousand pounds’ worth of silver, and the crew’s indignation knew no bounds. The wretched Tryal had chased her for thirty-six hours through appalling weather (the Centurion had split her main-topsail in the same storm, but preferred to forget it) and had followed her throughout the length of the night guided by no more than a chink that showed through an ill-fitting cover: but the Centurions felt cheated, vexed and cantankerous, and they regarded the crew of the Tryal with righteous disdain—a disdain founded on different and contradictory reasons: first, the prize should never have been a prize at all, but a fighting Spaniard; secondly, if she had to be a prize at all, she ought to have been the Centurion’s prize; and thirdly, if the Tryal had taken a prize, she ought to have taken a rich one.
‘And I lost a valuable basket, stowed by the hances, when the decks were cleared,’ said Peter.
‘They had a full ten days at sea ahead of us,’ said Preston. ‘That is what I call taking a mean advantage—I mean, to go careering about the sea at such a pace, and crowding on so that they carry away their main-topmast and spring all the rest, in chase of a paltry five-thousand-pounder.’
‘Five thousand pounds is a sum I scorn,’ said Bailey. ‘They ought to think more of the service and less of prize-money,’ he added.
‘And do you know what?’ cried Keppel, darting furiously into the berth. ‘The Commodore is going to commission her as a frigate, R.N., and Sawney is to be made post into her. They are shifting Tryal’s guns into her at this very minute, and the sloop is to be scuttled. That’s what they get for having run his Majesty’s ship into a crimson wreck. Rewarded with a fine new frigate—she was a man-of-war in the Spanish service off and on—and begged to make themselves comfortable aboard—a wonderful sailer on a wind—promoted—petted. Oh, it’s famous, ain’t it? So now we don’t even get our share of the hulk. It’s pretty well, eh?’ With a howl of frustrated avarice he vanished on deck.
‘Oh, well,’ said Peter, philosophically, ‘there is still a prodigious lot of sea, and I make no doubt that it is swarming with prizes. I will bet we make a round dozen before we reach Paita.’
Chapter Ten
IF ANYONE HAD TAKEN PETER’S BET, PETER WOULD HAVE LOST his money: nobody did, of course, for it might have brought bad luck to the ship; but still, he would certainly have lost his money. The squadron swept the sea off Valparaiso, swept the coast of Chile, the coast and headlands of Peru; they recrossed Capricorn with flowing sheets and a southerly gale, strung out in a wide line abreast, the Centurion and then the Carmelo, courses down to the larboard, under the command of Mr Saumarez, and beyond her, out of sight of the Centurion but within signalling distance of the Carmelo, the Tryal’s Prize with a motley crew of black, yellow and dun, kept in apple-pie order and a miserable state of cleanliness by the men of the Tryal. The three ships covered an immense area of sea, a strip perhaps fifty miles wide in which nothing could pass unseen; and as they cruised in the lanes of mercantile traffic they watched with unremitting attention. But never a sail did they find.
‘November 1st. 14° 2’ S. 76° 39’ W. Island Gallan bearing NNE½E 7 leagues, Morro Viejo S½E 5 miles. Wind at SSE backing S,’ wrote Peter. ‘No news. We took in some men from Carmelo, in case of a Spanish force out of Callao. Many flying fish. Sean caught a bonito from the larboard bumkin.
‘November 4th. My birthday. We have been 412 days at sea now and I have more than a year’s seniority. I did not like to mention it in the berth, but Mr Walter very kindly brought me a cake that he had saved from those taken in Tryal’s Prize which Mr Saunders complimented him with. It was especially kind in him, as he cannot be trusted with sweet things—avows it himself—not even loaf sugar: has been seen hiding it under his cassock in the wardroom and Jennings swears that the Commodore’s steward has to keep the Commodore’s own preserves under lock and key, with the key round his neck. So seeing the cake, the berth smoked the reason, and Ransome arranged the cake in a shot-garland, with a candle—there was only room for one on the cake, a rat having trimmed it about. It
was an uncommon elegant notion, but unfortunately the tallow ran in the sun, rather, and it was impossible to be relished very much, quite apart from the weevils. And they treated me to a famous rum-punch, which we drank, roaring and laughing like anything until Mr Brett sent to ask were we attempting to raise the Devil, and if so he was to be told the minute he appeared, in order to read him in at once, the ship being so short-handed. Sean gave me a comforter, 2 fathoms long, which he had knitted up out of black and purple wool found in Tryal’s Prize. Query, how did he come by it? It will be very useful when we are out of the Tropics. Most kind and obliging in Sean.
‘November 5th. 10° 36’ S. 77° 41’ N. Cape Barranca bearing WNW½W. Variation at noon 7° 1’ S. Light variable airs at S and SW. No news. We are more than 50 days out of Juan Fernandez now, and Mr Blew says they can send an express from Valparaiso to Lima in 30 days, so by now they may know all along the coast that we are here, and may already have laid an embargo on the shipping in Peru as well as Chile. The men are still in very high spirits however, and work the ship so briskly it is a pleasure to see. Mem. to ask the sailmaker to add 2 pieces to my canvas trousers: they only come to my shins, and are painfully tight. Mem. to give Rogers a handsome present for the Centurion in a bottle he made me.’
It was Peter’s watch below, the afternoon watch of a very warm day, not too hot, but sleepy weather. He yawned, closed his journal, and opened his Horace. The Ode about Maevius was to be prepared for Mr Walter, and he and Keppel had made a version with which they were rather pleased.
‘“Mala soluta navis exit alite
Ferens olentem Maevium”—The ship with the malodorous Mr Saumarez aboard squares her yards with an unfortunate omen.
“Ut horridus utrumque verberes latus,
Auster, momento fluctibus”—Remember, O South Wind, to bang her about starboard and larboard.
“Niger rudentes Eurus, inverso mari,